Film screening | Think about your independence

July 4 is the perfect time to reflect on our collective right to choose the next leader of our constitutional republic. Nothing in our founding documents defined or limited elections to a red and blue political party. It is ultimately our individual responsibility to evaluate the candidates on the ballot to determine who can best lead our nation.

We’ve had eight years to fully evaluate the blue and red options on the menu. Neither choice in this gerontocracy will result in the restoration of a government focused on the interests of American citizens. The many problems facing our citizens will continue to be relegated to donor interests that favor military, pharmaceutical and other misadventures.

Neither heeded the wise farewell addresses of George Washington, warning that political parties allow “unprincipled men to overthrow the power of the people,” or of Dwight Eisenhower to “protect themselves against the acquisition of unjustified influence, whether sought or not. by the military-industrial complex. We are at war with the world without being able to raise our own children.

This election year, there is another option and one with the greatest chance of electoral success since Teddy Roosevelt ran outside the two-party system. Each of us must form our own opinion and live with our conscience, but making this decision requires intellectual honesty and curiosity, and not relying solely on opinion makers in partisan media. At 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 7 in Oddfellows Hall, we will screen the 30-minute documentary “Who is Robert F. Kennedy Jr” and his State of the Union address. Join us to learn more about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his optimistic vision of America.

Choosing to live on an island implies freeing yourself from the dominant current of the continent. When we islanders fully evaluate the options offered by our constitution on the November ballot, many of us will decide that the partisan straitjacket that has produced the least competent red and blue candidates in a century is not worth playing a bad candidate against another even worse candidate. The alternative is to vote for a new path, one that will heal divisions, reset partisan chaos, and return the country to its rational founding principles.